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Hasdai ibn Shaprut Hasdai ibn Shaprut (915-975) was like many other leading medieval Jewish figures a physician by profession and a writer by avocation. He was court physician and advisor to Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III in Cordova, Spain, and fulfilled several important diplomatic missions. Until the advent of Hasdai, Spanish Jewry had been dependent for guidance in halakhic matters upon Babylonia, then still the great center of Jewish culture and learning. By virtue of his wealth, Hasdai invited sages from Babylonia, North Africa and Southern Italy to Spain, supported them, established academies and provided them with libraries; in addition, he was also patron to local scholars and Hebrew grammarians. Hasdai is best known for the letter (c. 960) that he sent to the King of the Khazars, a people on the banks of the Volga in Russia who had accepted Judaism. Influenced by Jews who migrated from Persia and Babylonia, the Khazars converted to Judaism in the ninth century. One hundred years later, news of this thriving Jewish kingdom reached Spain and gladdened its Jewry, for they thought that the Khazars were of the Ten Lost Tribes. Hasdai's joy in learning of an independent Jewish nation is representative of the people of Israel's age-old yearning to hear of Jews who are not subjugated, but free (see the Travels of Eldad the Danite and the Travel Diary of David Reubeni). Hasdai ibn Shaprut's attempt to establish contact with Joseph, King of the Khazars, succeeded when two Jewish diplomats came to Spain from Khazaria and received Hasdai's letter to the Jewish king. Both Hasdai's letter and the king's reply contain valuable information about the last years of this kingdom. In 969—nine years after the letter was written—this now legendary nation was defeated in a war waged by the prince of Russia. 158 THE EPISTLE OF R. HASDAI, SON OF ISAAC (OF BLESSED MEMORY) TO THE KING OF THE KHAZARS I, Hasdai, son of Isaac, son of Ezra, belonging to the exiled Jews of Jerusalem, in Spain, a servant of my Lord the King, bow to the earth before him and prostrate myself towards the abode of your Majesty, from a distant land. I rejoice in your tranquility and magnificence, and stretch forth my hands to God in Heaven that He may prolong your reign in Israel. But who am I? and what is my life that I should dare to indite a letter to my Lord the King and to address your Majesty? I rely, however, on the integrity and uprightness of my object. How, indeed, can an idea be expressed in fair words by those who have wandered, after the honour of the kingdom has departed; who have long suffered afflictions and calamities, and see their flags in the land no more? We, indeed, who are of the remnant of the captive Israelites, servants of my Lord the King, are dwelling peacefully in the land of our sojourning (for our God has not forsaken us, nor has His shadow departed from us). When we had transgressed He brought us into judgment, cast affliction upon our loins, and stirred up the minds of those who had been set over the Israelites to appoint collectors of tribute over them, who aggravated the yoke of the Israelites, oppressed them cruelly, humbled them grievously and inflicted great calamities upon them. But when God saw their misery and labour, and that they were helpless, He led me to present myself before the King, and has graciously turned His heart to me, not because of mine own righteousness, but for His mercy and His covenant's sake. And by this covenant the poor of the flock were exalted to safety, the hands of the oppressors themselves were relaxed, they refrained from further oppression, and through the mercy of our God the yoke was lightened. Let it be known, then, to the King my Lord, that the name of our land in which we dwell is called in the sacred tongue Sefarad, but in the language of the Arabs, the indwellers of the land, Alandalus [Andalusia], the name of the capital of the kingdom, Cordova. The length of it is 25,000 cubits, the breadth 10,000. It is situated at the left of the sea [Mediterranean ] which flows between your country and the great sea [Atlantic], and compasses the whole of your land. Between this city and the great sea beyond which there is no farther...

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